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Simplifying SEO | Advice From The Newsroom Experts

The updates Google have done to their search algorithm, and the advice they've offered since, has all been very clearly going in one direction - to get people to worry less about link building strategies and more about creating quality content that people want to read and share. And this is something we believe strongly in!

We know our product can help our customers increase their SEO, not just because helps with organic traffic but also because it's mobile-responsive, and Google has begun rewarding mobile-friendly sites with better rankings.

We also know search engine optimisation is a fussy area, and most of us are basically just guessing. That's why the product department has put together a dos and don'ts list to help you use your newsroom in the best way to maximise exposure, thus gaining interest and engagement!

Don'ts

DON'T use too many links in text

DON'T be keywords focused. Remember, you're primary audience is human beings, and reading the same selling keyword in every sentence gets insanely boring, and quite honestly, annoying. Write naturally, for humans - not for robots!

DON'T publish the same content twice. That goes for images as well, if you want to use existing images, use it as a web image or relate the published image to the news!

DON'T write very long titles! Keep titles no more than about 60 characters long. Search engines work differently most of the time they don't show more than 60 - 70 characters in the search result.

DON'T write uninformative titles.

DON'T abuse links - no release should need more than 10. If you end up with more, think again!

Dos

Do make sure your website is optimised for mobile. Google now looks at websites and rewards those that are mobile-friendly with better rankings

DO use related material, it increases your chances of being found by crawlers (in a good way)

DO set up links to your own website in your newsroom settings - this will create high quality inbound links to your website, thus building your own website's SEO!

DO use unique titles for all of your releases, be they images, blog posts or press releases. Duplicate titles are frowned upon!

DO publish frequently and regularly. The more material you have, the more chance you have of getting discovered by search engines.

DO use the "Summary" box for every release - it will act as the meta description for that page. Keep the summary selling, matches found in both title and summary will show higher in search results.

DO publish descriptive names to images and use unique headlines (don't use same headline for release and image)

DO focus on content, write for humans, link relevantly and helpfully.

DO use tags - we use tags to set up meta keywords!

DO use both CNAME and iframe if you have a Hosted Newsroom. Adding the CNAME will mean that the material is indexed on your domain, and therefore is search visible. It will still be the pretty framed version which will show, as the CNAME redirects to the iframe.

SEO is important - we get it! But with the rules always changing, it can be hard to keep abreast of what's good optimisation etiquette and what's not.
A brand newsroom can help you keep-up with Google's game and take your naturally optimised content to the next level. Here's my advice...

We’d like to give you an idea of what to expect next week at our first ever Bootcamp Live! The day has been designed with Mynewsdesk customers in mind. If you want to create cool content that your target market wants to voraciously consume, this is the day for you! Expect lots of workshops and interaction, and definitely some bribery with chocolate.

So far we’ve held two bootcamp sessions, “Back to Basics”, and Setting KPIs”, both of which have received really good feedback! So thank you for being a part of this series and making the time to listen to us harp on about newsroom best practise, and test out our cheese jokes on you.